In recent years, personal computers have become increasingly prevalent in industries. It is not uncommon today for a company to have scores, if not of PCs in one room with a similar number of stations from which to access these PCs. Often, it is desirable to have the video display, keyboard, and mouse from the location of the PC. Various prior art keyboard, video display, mouse and serial port extenders have been used in the past. One example of a prior art extender system is shown in FIG. 1. This system includes a local module which is adjacent to and external to the PC.
While these extender systems have been used extensively in the past, they do have some drawbacks. First of all, with the local module exterior to the PC, it is necessary to have an additional power supply for the local module. Secondly, there must be a location for this local module; this can be especially troubling when the is an industrial PC disposed in a rack having little additional space for additional modules. Thirdly, the cabling between the local module and the PC often interferes with other cabling.
Consequently, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for extending the separation distance of peripherals and a PC in an efficient manner.